We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

We’ve allowed—nay, in many cases encouraged—our government to become unlimited in its goals, bloated in its size, and arbitrary in its action. In this respect Obama-care is more the culmination of decades of policy-making than a deviation from them. We’ve indulged in the fatal conceit that we can ask the state to attend to all our cares and invite the government to correct all our perceived problems, without considering either the counterproductive practical consequences ...

In many arts subjects, especially those tethered only loosely to evidence, logic or practical verification, there’s often pressure to avoid the obvious and prosaic, even when the obvious and prosaic is true.

Angelo M. Codevilla wonders how long two-thirds of America can possibly be ruled by a well-entrenched elitist third.

One quote from Codevilla:

The polls tell us that only about a fifth of Americans trust the government to do the right thing. The rest expect that it will do more harm than good and are no longer afraid to say so.

While Europeans are accustomed to being ruled by presumed betters whom they distrust, the American people's realization of being ruled like Europeans shocked this country into well nigh revolutionary attitudes.

If Codevilla and other are correct, then we are drifiting into some sort of socialist dictatorship. The drift cannot be stopped by political means because there is no opposition party: the Republicans have been co-opted and thoroughly discredited.

Most likely, the American people will simply submit. We are no different than the Weimar Germans or Russians or Chinese. Everyone (as in everyone) wants something for nothing. Moreover, socialism infantilizes people and makes them dependent and obedient. Europeans, who once ruled and dominated the world are now degenerate. They could not even intervene in the collapsing Yugoslavia. The Germany army could not move a single tank company 300 hundred miles, except in American transports. Pace "Barbarossa."

However, considering the large number of people with guns (nearly all of whom oppose the drift) and the disaffection in the military, a Pinochet-style coup d'etat cannot be ruled out. The short-term result would not be republican democracy. It will be a bloodbath. Millions will be "disappeared." The French Terror will return.

While Chile was governed by a center-left coalition for the first 20 years of democracy after Pinochet, the center-left coalition followed the economic policies of Pinochet, not of Allende.

Allende nationalized everything in sight- usually by decree, not by legislative vote. Allende justified his unilateral nationalizations by citing a decree law issued by Colonel Marmaduke Grove, a member of a short-lived military junta in the 1930s.

By contrast, the center-left coalition that took over after Pinochet sold off some government-owned entities.

I don't think Codevilla is a fool as the problem is clear and the solution isn't so obvious. Still doomed-to-repeat-history is not necessarily in the cards for America...pray for a peaceful revolution.

Peggy Noonan should be permanently estopped from talking about politics, after her sham job in helping to sell Obama to independent voters and wobbly Republicans. Seriously - she and Frum and Chris Buckley should just sip on a tall mug of STFU and go away for a while.

It is possible that Peggy Noonan still has some credibility with independent voters and wobbly Republicans. Perhaps her more recent writings might persuade some of the independent/wobbly sectors to leave the Oilbama fold.

Certainly Noonan will not persuade anyone who saw through Oilbama two years ago. We are already persuaded. Those of us who saw through Oilbama from the beginning- and you didn't have to be a rocket scientist to do so [IOW Noonan's going for Oilbama was no indication of perspicacity on her part]- felt that Noonan betrayed us, or that she was a damned fool.

If a damned fool like Peggy Noonan can persuade some to leave to Oilbama fold, perhaps she has some usefulness. I will simply read her for entertainment, not to be informed.

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